Thursday, January 24, 2013

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In Episode 501 of The
Muppet Show (“With our very
special guest star, Gene Kelly, yay!”) the starship Swinetrek in the “Pigs in Space” segment approaches the End of the
Universe.As Dr. Julius Strangepork
informs the other members of the crew, Captain Link Hogthrob and First Mate
(Miss) Piggy, as soon as they reach the End of the Universe (in one minute),
the Meaning and Purpose of Life will be revealed.

A few seconds later the dinner gong rings.Captain Hogthrob immediately heads for the
hatch, whereupon Dr. Strangepork asks him why he isn’t waiting around to find
out the Meaning and Purpose of Life.Link informs them that they, Strangepork and Miss Piggy, can wait if they want to — the chef
has made swill stroganoff.

With but a few seconds to go before reaching the End of the
Universe and discovering the Meaning and Purpose of Life, Dr. Strangepork says
reflectively, “The Meaning and Purpose of Life.”Miss Piggy says, “Swill stroganoff,” and
smacks her lips.Both race for the
hatch.

The Meaning and
Purpose of Life

Fortunately, we don’t have to take a voyage to the End of
the Universe to find out the Meaning and Purpose of Life (or line up for swill
stroganoff, evidently).We simply have
to use our reason — which is why the death of reason is such a disaster in the
modern world.(To connect A to B, and B
to C, if we need reason to determine the Meaning and Purpose of Life, and we
have killed reason, we won’t be able to determine the Meaning and Purpose of
Life, obviously.)

According to Aristotle, the Meaning and Purpose of Life is
to pursue happiness.That’s not what it
sounds like.The Philosopher made clear
that true happiness consists of conforming yourself to your own nature, that is
(for human beings) to become more fully human.

How do we conform ourselves to our own nature?By acquiring and developing habits of doing
good — virtue.What is good?Whatever is consistent with nature.How do we know what is consistent with nature?By observing what people in all times and
places have generally agreed is good.Thus
the good that is common to humanity, the good that defines us for what we are —
the common good — is the capacity to acquire and develop virtue.That is pretty much a summary of Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics, generally
considered the first part of The Politics.

In The Politics
Aristotle got down to brass tacks.It’s
all very well to say that humanity becomes more fully human by acquiring and
developing virtue.The problem is how.

One of the first things we learn in The Politics is that “man is by nature a political animal.”By this, Aristotle did not mean merely
social, but evidently something that appears to be unique: humanity is a
creature with individual rights and an individual nature, which at the same
time has social rights and a social nature.

Thus, as far as Aristotle was concerned, we best realize our
individual natures within a social setting, the pòlis, the political unit.The art of politics consists of optimizing the exercise of individual
rights in a way that does not interfere unduly with the exercise of individual
rights by others — or the social environment within which we exercise our
individual rights.

In general, that means we are free to exercise our rights in
any way we please, as long as we do not thereby harm other individuals, groups,
or the social environment.We can
understand the social environment as the network of institutions that
constitute the social order, the environment within which we exercise rights.

This social environment is extraordinarily important . . .
although not quite as important as some people tend to believe.Maintaining the social environment is so
important that it can require great sacrifice on the part of those charged with
maintaining it — but never to the extent that harming an innocent person is
ever justified, even if we anticipate that the greatest possible good will come
of it.

The social environment is important because as political
animals, humanity exercises individual rights within a social setting, the pòlis.The exercise of individual rights is important because it is by exercising
our rights that we acquire and develop virtue, thereby becoming more fully
human.

We can therefore say that, while the most fundamental way to
express the common good is the capacity that each human being has to acquire
and develop virtue, the concrete manifestation of the common good is the social
environment within which people as “political animals” acquire and develop
virtue.Specifically, then, the common
good consists of that vast network of institutions within which people realize
their fullest human potential through the exercise of their rights.

Institutions — laws, customs, traditions, and so on — are
thus “social habits,” that is, way human beings do things socially, that is, in
an organized manner.Consequently we can
say that, just as the habit of doing good on the individual level is called
virtue (or, more accurately, individual virtue), the habit of doing good
socially (politically) is social virtue.Of the social virtues, the best known (and thus the most abused) is
social justice, followed closely by social charity.

Given this understanding of virtue and the common good, once
we know that the State is the guardian of the common good, we immediately
understand that the State’s special role is to care for and maintain our institutions
in such a way as to optimize each individual’s acquisition and development of
virtue.This can best be summarized as
saying that the role of the State is to provide equality of opportunity, not
results.

Does that mean that the State has no responsibility to
individuals?Yes — but responsibility to
individuals is not the State’s special competence.Where there is no necessity for the State to
take direct action and provide for individuals’ needs, it is profoundly wrong
for the State to do any such thing.

As Pope Leo XIII carefully explained (and, as we shall see,
was even more carefully ignored), the State’s responsibility for individual
good is limited to “extreme cases.”(Rerum Novarum, § 22.)If
someone has absolutely no other recourse, then
the State must provide for that person, but only (and here is the catch), only until such time as the
individual is able to care for him- or herself, or until there is other
recourse.“There is no need to bring in
the State. Man precedes the State, and possesses, prior to the formation of any
State, the right of providing for the substance of his body.”(Ibid.,
7.)

There is a very
good reason for this, the best reason in the world, as far as a pope would be
concerned.A paradox is involved.All people agree (or should agree) that
taking care of the needs of another is a virtuous act.The giver and the recipient who give and
receive, respectively, in the right spirit grow in virtue (the habit of doing
good) — the giver in charity, the recipient in humility and gratitude, and both
in graciousness.

A State, however, is not a natural person.This includes a government as well, even a
government of one person; a ruler qua
ruler, i.e., an office holder, is not
a natural person.Neither the State nor
a government has a natural capacity to acquire and develop virtue.A State only has what Aristotle would call a
“reflected” virtue, i.e., whatever
the citizens in the State delegate to the State so that the State can carry out
its function — care of the common good, not individual goods.

Consequently, and strictly speaking, it is not a virtuous
act for the State to take care of individual needs except as an expedient when
there is no other recourse.When the
State takes over the responsibility of providing for individual goods, it
denies those for whom provision is made the opportunity to grow in virtue, that
is, from becoming more fully human.

People have the rights of life, liberty and property to
enable them to exercise those rights and thereby grow in virtue by building
habits of doing good.The exercise of
rights must be voluntary, of course.Coerced
deeds may be good in their effects, and necessary at times as an expedient, but
they are not virtuous, being done out of fear rather than love.When the threat of coercion is removed,
people tend to return to their old habits, good (virtue) or bad (vice), as the
case may be.

Unfortunately, many people today seem to misunderstand the
role of the State.If having the State
take care of people’s needs as an expedient in an emergency is good, then
having the State take care of all of people’s needs all the time must be the
best of all possible worlds . . . right?

Wrong.By taking away
people’s chances to do things for themselves, you prevent them from acquiring
and developing virtue and becoming more fully human.Since becoming more fully human is the
meaning and purpose of life, providing for every need defeats the whole purpose
of being alive in the first place, and the people whose every need is met
remain children — or slaves.

Then again, becoming more fully human is work — a lifetime’s
worth, in fact.